China Maritime To Introduce The Insurance Principle Of Proximate Cause

The principle of proximate cause has been lasted for a long time, and the English courts adopted the principle to judge causation in the eighteen or nineteen century. There are a large amount of cases in this area. In 1906,the English had its Marine Insurance Act. Now most of the countries in the world have adopted the principle of proximate cause more or less because of the great influence of the MIA,1906. But in China, the principle of proximate cause hasn't been adopted in our marine insurance law. The spirit of the principle has been accepted in practice and works as a reference principle. For the sake of maturing our marine insurance legislation, the principle of proximate cause should be modified and adopted to treat our desire in related practices.The first part of the thesis mainly introduces what is proximate cause and what is the principle of proximate, the history, the background and the development of the principle, and its important function. The principle should be adopted in our marine insurance legislation, though it has been exited in marine insurance practice.The following chapter begins with the concept of causation in philosophy. It has been a long time for this concept being introduced into civil law and then into marine insurance. In the early 19th century, the discussion was focused on the "fault". With the development of economy and the increasing of industrialization, causation in civil law attracted lots of scholars' attention. There are various different opinions about it, but among them, the principle of proximate cause is prevailed in law and practices in marine insurance. Some scholars advocated that the chain of causation could be broken by some events. Then the latter intervene events took the place of the proceeding causes and became proximate cause. The point of view had been criticized for the reason that it might lead the judge to an old fashion, i.e, to adopt the last event in the sequence of causation as the proximate.How to apply this principle to settle the dispute between the assured and the insurer? The judgments vary according to different judges. In chapter three, the authorinsurer? The judgments vary according to different judges. In chapter three, the author try to give general ideas about what should be considered when the principle is applied. About the criterion of proximate cause, judges in common law system suggested one "common sense standard" in which they advocated that judges should apply common knowledge of people on the street, while trying to find the proximate cause in the complicated relations between causes and effects.But the author must admit that the "Exception clauses" in the policy can exclude the application of this principle. The parties usually use such words as "arising from", "attribute to " in what we called exception clauses.In chapter four, the thesis mainly discusses the onus of proof about causation in marine insurance. The chapter begins with the introduction of the concept of proof, onus of proof in a general way. And in marine insurance, the regulations and practices about the balance of probabilities are closely related to the onus of proof of the parties. Some special rules are applied in different circumstances.The last chapter of this thesis is about the current regulations and practices about proximate principle in marine insurance in China. In order to keep up with the current situation, we need to know the background of the widely accepted principle and its development in the course of settling the disputes between the parties of marine insurance policies. In the light of the great influence and function of the principle of proximate cause in marine insurance, legislation should be taken in our country .The thesis tries to give the author's opinion about the matter.